


calling you home

by legosi (orphan_account)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Writing, Canon Compliant, Introspection, JESSE IS SAD, M/M, bad formatting, but it’s ok he’ll figure it out, inaccurate canon, kinda subtle mcgenji like it’s not very out there, listen fuck me if i know whats going on in ow canon lol, weird tenses i kept getting mixed up, word vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23011696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/legosi
Summary: Jesse thinks about his place in the world and where he’s been.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Genji Shimada
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	calling you home

**Author's Note:**

> this is so badkfkskfkd but i still kinda like it. maybe because i spent way too long writing this for it to only come out to 1k and still bad ..

There’s probably not been a single place Jesse has actually felt comfortable. Maybe when he was a kid, with his mama and their dog out in New Mexico. It was right at the very beginning of the Omnic Crisis, but he didn’t know that. He might’ve been happy then, or he just didn’t know any other way to feel. 

He definitely wasn’t happy with the Deadlock gang. He and Ashe were only friends by proximity, and drinking together felt more like a formality than a passtime. At the end of all that, he didn’t feel like he’d lost anything.

Blackwatch – Well, Blackwatch was different. He was part of that family for a long time. Gabe was like a father to him, Moira a questionably behaved aunt. Ana – though she was in Overwatch – was probably the person he looked up to most in life. A sharpshooter fighting for her country, who gave up everything for what she believed in. Jesse likes to think he did the same, though he was never sure what he truly believed in. 

Genji though. Genji was – They had a semi-complicated relationship. They’d bicker over tiny things but at the same time they were inseparable. They’d spar and by the end of it Genji would be pushing Jesse into one of the storage rooms outside the practice range. Genji made him feel like no one else had, and the same was true when Overwatch fell and Genji had just vanished.

Still, Blackwatch was probably the closest thing to home. The work was dirty, and the fact that it was deemed legal somehow made it feel dirtier, but the shitty bunk beds and cold concrete floors were where he felt … a part of something, maybe. Bothering Gabe in the mornings, having coffee with Moira, struggling to get Genji up every morning. He felt like he at least belonged there, even if he hated that fact for a long time.

When Overwatch fell, he was on his own and everything he thought he knew was disproven once again. Ana was dead, or something like that. Genji, too, but Genji wasn’t the type to put himself into danger like Ana was. Gabe had probably lost it, he was already halfway gone when he killed Antonio in Rialto and it had been years since then. The experiments Moira had been conducting on him probably didn’t help. He didn’t know about Moira’s whereabouts, but he’d been pretty sure he heard of a crazy scientist in Oasis that sounded a lot like her.

Being alone worked, at least. He wasn’t happy, but at least he had some control over the work he did. He didn’t have a home, unless the people he did work for paid for his room at some dingy hotel. A job gone sideways resulted in his arm having to be amputated, replaced with a metal hunk that he got used to only after a few months. Aside from that, he was mostly unscathed by the time of the recall.

It threw him off, mostly, being called back to Overwatch after all those years. Seeing Winston’s face in the dorky video he sent. Knowing that all the others had probably gotten the same message. All those that lived past the fall, anyway. It wasn’t exactly like Jesse was itching to go back to them, but anything seemed better than continuing to do rich folks’ dirty work.

So he went back. He formally met a lot of the Overwatch team that he didn’t know well before, and new ones that he’d never even heard of. Lucio, the Brazilian musician and revolutionary, and D.Va, the professional gamer from Korea, being two of them that particularly stood out. Hearing Athena’s voice again brought back a lot of memories, good and bad. Explaining the situation with his arm got old after a while, as well.

Seeing Jack again was… kind of how Jesse had expected it to be. Jack was a very deeply sad person, in ways Jesse still couldn’t fully comprehend. He knew war did terrible things to people, but seeing it in a man that he once knew to be the most stable person in his life was something else. He was angry, more than anything else, and seemed to be perpetually exhausted. There was no trace of Commander Jack Morrison left, it seemed.

Jesse was sitting in the dining area of the Watchpoint, chatting with a very hyper Tracer and D.Va, when Winston walked into the room with the latest arrival.

A cyborg, silver with green lights underneath his metal plating, a large sword attached to his back. There was a part of Jesse that already knew before Winston said the cyborg’s name, but he didn’t want to be presumptuous.

The scientist, never mindful of his size, clapped a large hand over the cyborg’s shoulder and introduced him – as if this was a mystery to anyone but D.Va, really – as Genji Shimada, formerly of Blackwatch.

“You’re alive?” Was the first thing that came out of Jesse’s mouth. He slowly stood up, nearly going for a hug before remembering that it’d been  _ years  _ and Genji might not have even remember him. He extended his metal hand for Genji to shake.

“Of course, cowboy, you think I am so eager to get myself killed?” said Genji, and took Jesse’s hand into his. “Quite an arm you’ve got there, Jesse! I hope you have a story to tell about it.”

“Ah, it’s not much,” murmured Jesse. Genji was… different. Brighter. It seemed that there was at least one person who became better after the fall of Overwatch. Upon realizing he was kind of hogging the new arrival, Jesse stepped back and let Tracer and D.Va say their hellos.

Once they’d finished, Genji looked back at Jesse. “Let’s catch up more, right? It has been a long time.”

“Of course,” replied Jesse, giving a small smile. 

The watchpoint would probably never become his home. But it had a hell of a chance. Maybe he could be happy here. Maybe he could be with Genji again. Maybe everything would be taken from him again, and he’d have to start anew again, and mourn the death of everyone around him one more time. A lot could happen, but for once Jesse was content to wait it out.

**Author's Note:**

> thx/sry . i’ll write more overwatch probably  
> also sorry for the jack lines he just makes me very sad


End file.
